Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: zarf; Prokopton; Maynerd; furquhart
I think George Bush has gotten it right in fudging the issue with respect to who the enemy is. In the beginning he called the enemy "terrorism." Some of the posters on this thread suggested that the enemy should be labeled "Islam." Can you imagine the hurricane of criticism which would have been mounted against Bush for having made enemies of 1.3 billion people?

Later Bush attempted to move the labeling a little closer to home, calling the enemy "islamo-Fascist" and we have seen the criticism he drew for that, and it appears that the administration has subsequently backed off from this description.

No matter, the lapse is self-correcting. In order to advance their war, the islamo fascists must strike our homeland again. When they do, we will be in no mood for labeling games. If they do not, no harm - no foul and there is no war against terrorism, against Islam, or against "islamo fascists."

As important as clearly identifying the enemy is the need to clearly identify one's friends and allies. There are hundreds of millions of Arabs and over a billion Muslims. From this immense worldwide pool of Mohammedens the enemy needs to find only 19 suicidal terrorists to kill 3000 of our citizens, throw our economy into recession, shut down at least temporarily our stock market, and nearly bankrupt our airline industry. As the direct and indirect consequence of the of the attack by those 19 terrorists (out of a pool of 1.3 billion potential terrorists) we are waging two wars.

In neither war have we demonstrated that we are able to convert Muslims into allies who will root out the potential terrorists in their midst to make their own world safe, if not our own. Worse, we have demonstrated that we cannot bail out the boat fast enough in either Iraq or Afghanistan to kill the terrorists ourselves.

Under these circumstances, unless we want to wage unrestrained nuclear war against the whole of the crescent of Islam, murdering over a billion people, and still having tens of millions of Muslims in our midst, we ought to think through our policy about how to wage the war against terrorism. Before we declare war on one out of every five people in the world, we ought to pause for at least a moment.

I think we are in grave danger of losing this war against Islamic fascism which will not shrink from mass murder in our homeland with weapons of mass destruction. I think we don't know how to identify and destroy the cancer within Islam. I think only the Muslims themselves can do that. I think we should rack our brains to find ways of mobilizing the sane, moderate, Muslim world against the crazies in their midst. I do not see how labeling all Muslims our enemy advances that cause.

In addition to allies in the Muslim world, America cannot hope to survive this war if we lose our allies in western world. As one who lives in Germany, I walk in a world where anti-Americanism is rife and contempt for George Bush is as common as beer and sausage. I think George Bush pushed the envelope about as far as he could go after 9/11. I think he would have succeeded in overcoming the left-wing resistance of Europe except that no WMD's were found in Iraq. With that, his cause, I mean George Bush's personal standing, was irretrievably lost, and with it The Bush Doctrine. What do you suppose will happen to the Western alliance if we declare war on all of Islam?


11 posted on 10/11/2006 11:59:16 PM PDT by nathanbedford ("I like to legislate. I feel I've done a lot of good." Sen. Robert Byrd)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies ]


To: nathanbedford
In neither war have we demonstrated that we are able to convert Muslims into allies who will root out the potential terrorists in their midst to make their own world safe, if not our own.

Zarqawi was offered to Iraq security forces by citzens. Zarqawi was offered to America by Iraq security forces. What is your definition of an ally? Al Qaeda operative Rashid Rauf was arrested in Pakistan...by Pakistan, a day before the UK arrested the rest of the co-conspirators in the recent airplane plot. The examples of cooperation are numerous, but more to the point you discount the millions of Iraq voters who elected a government to expell Al Qaeda. Clearly we are able to convert Muslims into allies who will root out the potential terrorists in their midst.

I fully expect the population of other nations to loath Bush. I much prefer it to the adoration they had for Clinton.

I think we are in grave danger of losing this war against Islamic fascism which will not shrink from mass murder in our homeland with weapons of mass destruction. I think we don't know how to identify and destroy the cancer within Islam. I think only the Muslims themselves can do that. I think we should rack our brains to find ways of mobilizing the sane, moderate, Muslim world against the crazies in their midst. I do not see how labeling all Muslims our enemy advances that cause.

Agreed.

13 posted on 10/12/2006 1:45:58 AM PDT by Once-Ler (The rat 06 election platform will be a promise to impeach the President if they win)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]

To: nathanbedford
Can you imagine the hurricane of criticism which would have been mounted against Bush for having made enemies of 1.3 billion people?

This quote is unlike you.

George Bush never had the power to "make them our enemies".

They are our enemies already. They were our enemies when Prescott Bush was in boarding school.

They were our enemies when George Washington put his hand on the Bible.

George Bush can recognize our enemies, but he doesn't create them.

16 posted on 10/12/2006 4:37:25 AM PDT by Jim Noble (Some moron brought a cougar to a party, and it went berserk.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]

To: nathanbedford
How are we to deal with Islamists, if we can't piss off Muslims?
Europe refuses to see the truth, but it is not safe. Every summer and every Ramadan, cities burn. The Muslim population grows and craven compromises are made.

Islam isn't the problem. Muslims who think that they must conquer the world is. We must made Muslim eschatological dreams an impossibility, so liberal Muslims can re-invent the religion.

38 posted on 10/12/2006 11:53:41 PM PDT by rmlew (DeathKlok Rules!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson